Fred Van Lente | Earth and Skye

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Title: Dead Man’s Hand
Author: John Joseph Adams, Joe R. Lansdale, Ben H. Winters, David Farland, Mike Resnick, Seanan McGuire, Charles Yu, Alan Dean Foster, Beth Revis, Alastair Reynolds, Hugh Howey, Rajan Khanna, Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Bear, Tad Williams, Jonathan Maberry, Kelley Armstrong, Tobias S. Buckell, Jeffrey Ford, Ken Liu, Laura Anne Gilman, Walter Jon Williams, Fred Van Lente & Christie Yant
In: Dead Man’s Hand (John Joseph Adams)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Science fiction, Short story collections, Weird western
Dates read: 4th June – 26th November 2020
Pace: Slow
Format: Anthology
Publisher: Titan Books
Year: 2014
5th sentence, 74th page: “Am I interrupting?” she asked.

HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD!

From a kill-or-be-killed gunfight with a vampire to an encounter in a steampunk bordello, the weird western is a dark, gritty tale where the protagonist might be playing poker with a sorcerous deck of cards, or facing an alien on the streets of a dusty frontier town.

Here are twenty-three original tales – stories of the Old West infused with elements of the fantastic – produced specifically for this volume by many of today’s finest writers. Included are Orson Scott Card’s first “Alvin Maker” story in a decade, and an original adventure by Fred Van Lente, writer of Cowboys & Aliens.

What a fantastic collection. And a great new genre to add to my ever-expanding knowledge of / collection of books. Before reading Dead Man’s Hand and Westward Weird, I had never heard of Weird westerns. And now it’s a genre that I’m seriously keen to find more of. There is just something amazingly fun and awesome about this collection. Very, very enjoyable.

The gunslingers and card players throughout this anthology took me on an absolutely joyous ride. One that I was kind of disappointed finished so quickly. The idea of the wild west has always intrigued me, making this the first time that I was completely able to thrown myself into this fascination.

This anthology didn’t quite get five stars because I didn’t fall head over heels for each and every story. Having said that, I would most definitely read this again. Even those stories which weren’t quite as holy crap amazing as the others.

<- Dead Man’s Hand

The Red-Headed Dead ->

Image source: Amazon

Title: Neversleeps
Author: Fred Van Lente
In: Dead Man’s Hand (John Joseph Adams)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Weird western
Dates read: 22nd November 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: Titan Books
Year: 2014
5th sentence, 74th page: The split-second, right before: his breath catching, pulse racing like a thoroughbred, thrilling to the randomness of life without thaumaturgy, the keenness of a skate down the razor’s edge, without horoscopes that definitively told him what the next day would bring, without love enchantments to spark others’ desire, without the certainty magery’s manipulation of reality brought.

The “Neversleeps” try to keep check with the world. But Edison has different ideas, he believes in free power for the world.

I love that this weird western features Edison. And the experiments on power and all sorts of fun history alright, there is a magic twist and a flying dragon and all sorts of other nonsensical fun, but still… the melding of actual history and pretend history… well, it works well.

This story jumps around in time a little bit, it was a great, fun journey. One that I think I need to take again… put all the pieces together in my head even better on this second reading. But, for now… my first read through was a lot of fun and filled with all sorts of joy.

Neversleeps is a fun and engaging short story. One that I very much enjoyed, and would most definitely read again.

<- The Golden Age

Dead Man’s Hand ->

Image source: Amazon

Earth and Skye

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Tag Archives: Fred Van Lente

Dead Man’s Hand edited by John Joseph Adams

Neversleeps by Fred Van Lente